Invasion (Blood on the Stars Book 9) Page 40

  “Yes, Commodore.” John Fuller let a touch of confusion slip into his tone, but it didn’t slow him down at all. Sara could see the officer hunching over his own workstation, quickly calculating the coordinates to send to each of the task force’s ships. Sara suspected he was nervous, wondering what she was looking for. She’d have told him, but she wasn’t sure herself. Something was just…wrong.

  She glanced over at the oblong cloud of dots, each one almost invisible by itself, and each representing one of the Lightning fighters Repulse and the other battleships had just launched. The second strike was weaker than the first, of course. Casualties had been higher, perhaps no more than she’d expected, but more than she’d hoped. The enemy was getting better at anti-fighter operations, the difference in their targeting and tactics noticeable in each successive battle. Stockton’s wings had gone in hard, as always, almost ignoring the danger of the enemy defenses. They tore into the Hegemony battle line with vicious abandon, and they inflicted enormous damage. But, they paid a stiff price for it.

  Sara knew the data on lost fighters was unreliable, as much AI guesswork as hard scanning data. Some of the ‘lost’ fighters were probably still out there, damaged, their transponders knocked out, rendering them as good as destroyed to the main computers on Repulse and the other battleships. There would still be live pilots in some of those ships, at least for a few more hours, just as there were almost certainly others who’d ditched, who were floating in space in survival gear. Their life expectancy was even shorter, given the limited resources of their suits.

  Sara had seen many battles, and she’d always tried to rescue as many disabled pilots as she could…but this was the first time she’d ever sent out rescue boats with an active strike force. She’d felt an impulse to intervene when she’d heard what Stockton was doing down in the launch bay, but then she thought about it. The normal caution in dispatching rescue teams was based on fear of enemy fighters blasting the unarmed boats to atoms. But, would the Hegemony ships, without fighters of their own, waste their defensive guns targeting unarmed rescuers?

  No, almost certainly not. At least if they recognized them for what they were.

  In the end, she’d let Stockton’s orders stand—though they exceeded his authority. The strike force commander had secured volunteers to run the missions, and he’d instructed them to follow right behind the attack groups. It was a reasonable idea, and one she cursed herself for not considering earlier. Facing an enemy without fighters changed many things, and Sara had to admit, she was still slow to fully grasp every opportunity the situation created.

  “Orders transmitted to all vessels, Commodore. All ships acknowledge.” Fuller nodded as he gave Sara the report, and then he turned toward Sonya, waiting for her almost immediate order to lock the coordinates into Repulse’s computer and launch the battleship’s drones.

  Fuller acknowledged Sonya’s commands, and a few seconds later, Repulse’s drones launched, a full spread of a dozen, and the tiny craft quickly formed up with those from the other big ships, all heading straight toward the enemy fleet.

  Sara almost spoke again, but she held her tongue. She wanted to share her suspicions with Sonya, and with Fuller, too. They were both excellent officers…but she knew they couldn’t offer her anything meaningful, not until the scanner data flowed back.

  She continued looking forward, waiting for enemy battleships to alter course, to adopt a bearing toward her forces. But, they just continued straight toward Winters’s waiting ships.

  It didn’t make sense. Sara’s task force would be able to move around behind them, get on their flanks and rear. The Hegemony ships had the advantage in numbers and firepower, but, sandwiched between two battle lines, and hit continually by fighter strikes from both, they would suffer badly.

  What the hell are they doing?

  She was still thinking that as she saw the first bits of data from the probes. Contacts, dozens of them. No, hundreds. Small ships, escorts—frigates, light cruisers…something like that. The ships were moving forward, at high velocity, and they clearly had some kind of countermeasures to deflect long range scans. The ships weren’t invisible, whatever they had was not true stealth technology, but they were just too small and too far away for the sensors on her battleships to pick them up yet.

  But, the drones were relaying the data back…mass, location, course, velocity. And, it didn’t take Sara long to realize the swarm of escorts was heading for her battle line.

  No, wait…

  They weren’t heading toward her battleships. They were on a course directly toward the advancing bomber wings.

  * * *

  Federov was floating . She’d had all the normal zero gravity training back at the Academy, and she understood how to handle herself in the frozen depths of space, but that all seemed hazy now, distant, like some memory from a past life.

  All these years without ditching…and this is how it ends? Floating in space after ejecting?

  She was scared, of course, but she’d also accepted the inevitability of her fate, at least as much as she could. She was one of the coldest veterans in the Confederation’s vaunted fighter corps, and she’d always known not just the risk, but the likelihood her duty would one day claim her. She was as ready as any person could be, and she was determined to maintain her dignity, to face death with a snarling smile, and not the stark terror she was holding down deep inside.

  She’d imagined being able to watch the battle, at least, as she waited for her air to run out, or for the nearly perfect insulator of her suit to let just enough heat escape for her to freeze. The idea of watching anything was absurd, of course. She, perhaps as much as anyone else, knew the distances involved in interplanetary combat. There were fighters all around, she suspected, and warships a bit farther, not to mention other pilots like her who’d had to ditch. But, the closest of any of them was probably hundreds of kilometers away, well beyond her visible range. And, her eyes were all she had now. Her suit had a transponder, sending out a signal to any rescue boat close enough to retrieve her, but otherwise, there was no power to waste on anything but prolonging her life, preserving heat and recycling the scant air in her survival system…while she floated along, hoping someone would lock in on her signal. Someone friendly, preferably. She wasn’t sure if being a Hegemony prisoner would be worse than death or not…but she was wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. Giving up, accepting death was a difficult thing for her to do, but her rationality intervened, told her it was the only option. She tried to stay serene, to think of her comrades, her family back on Tyria. She wondered what Stockton would write to them, if his words would help her parents and her brother deal with the loss. She felt a wave a sadness thinking about it. Her mother, in particular, would have a very difficult time of it.

  Her eyes were closed, her thoughts deep in the past, images of Alexandra Federov, and herself, young, at her mother’s side. She’d always wanted to be a pilot, for as long as she could remember, and no one had been able to dissuade her. Now, she wondered if she’d been selfish. Pursuing a dream was a noble endeavor, wasn’t it?

  But, how much pain did you cause them all, did you cause Mother? And, what will happen when they tell her you’re dead? It will destroy her…

  She heard a sound, some kind of beep. She put it out of her mind, disregarded it as a hallucination…and then it happened again.

  The transponder! It was picking up a signal.

  She could hear it, but she still couldn’t believe it. There was no way. The battle was still raging…and, if it wasn’t, that meant the fleet had bugged out. She couldn’t imagine the enemy had retreated.

  So, how can there be rescue boats out now?

  Her headset crackled to life. “Commander Federov…we are receiving your transponder signal. We are approaching and will commence recovery operations in four minutes. Pease acknowledge your receipt.”

  She couldn’t believe it. It just wasn’t possible.

  But, she’d heard it. Em
otion flooded from the depths of her mind. Tears welled up in her eyes, and a few flowed out, even as the message began to repeat itself.

  “Commander Federov…we are…”

  “Federov here,” she said, pouring all the resolve and strength she had left into holding her voice steady. But, in her mind, floating in front of her eyes, was the image of her mother…and then it all crashed through her discipline and restraint, like a torrential flood battering through a dam, and the tears flowed out, uncontrollable, defying her every effort to hold them back.

  * * *

  “Repulse flight control, this is Raptor. We’ve got bogeys ahead of us, some kind of escorts, low to mid-range tonnage. They’ve interposed themselves between us and the enemy battle line, and they are decelerating…just forming a line long our path. Any intel on these? Or orders?” Stockton almost smiled at the absurdity of his asking for additional orders. He’d always been a maverick, dancing along the razor’s edge between heroism and court martial. But, he didn’t know what those ships were doing—it wasn’t like any maneuver the enemy had tried before—and he’d be just as happy for some more informed orders than any he could come up with.

  He stared at the scanner as he waited for the message to reach Repulse and for an answer to make it back. He knew the commodore had sent out clouds of probes, but he hadn’t received any updates…which meant no one on Eaton’s flagship knew much more about what he was watching than he did. But, he’d resolved to check anyway.

  “Warrior, this is Repulse flight control. Negative on the escorts. We don’t know why they’re positioned there. Best guess is, they’re hoping your strike force will expend its ordnance attacking them, and save the battleships from suffering more damage.”

  Stockton didn’t believe that, not for an instant, and he didn’t think Stara did either. It made sense, in a theoretical sort of way, but he couldn’t imagine after the battles of the last months, the enemy could believe his bombers would allow themselves to be diverted by second-tier targets. The escorts could advance toward Eaton’s battle line, of course, but her battleships would tear them to pieces before their lighter guns even got into range.

  No, that’s not it. The Hegemony isn’t stupid.

  Then what?

  “We can’t move around them, Stara. It would take too long to change our vectors, eat up too much fuel. They’re right where they’d want to be to make us fly through their formation. Could they just be trying to pick off some bombers before we can close on the Hegemony battleships?” He was asking himself as much as Stara…and, he didn’t buy it, no more than he suspected she did.

  But, there was nothing to do. His squadrons were coming on at high velocity, and he just didn’t have the time to waste. His people had to get in, execute their strikes, and get the hell back to their motherships to refit and launch again. Whatever chance the fleet had to survive the battle, much less win it, relied on getting the squadrons in and out on multiple attacks.

  “We’re going in, Stara.” He shut the line before she could answer, and he switched to the open strike force channel. “Listen up, everybody… Warrior here. I don’t know what these ships up ahead have in mind, but my gut tells me, it’s not good. That doesn’t matter, though. We have a mission already, and we’re not going to deviate from it. Commodore Eaton, the admiral—everyone back on our motherships, and on all the other vessels of the fleet—are counting on us to hit those battleships hard. And, that’s just what we’re going to do. So, we go through these bastards in front of us. Stay on target, all of you. Keep your focus…and follow me right to the enemy battle line.”

  He cut the channel, and he looked up…just as his scanners went wild.

  He saw flashes on his screen, dozens of them, no…hundreds. And, symbols started disappearing. His fighters, his pilots…one after another. Five, then ten…then more than he could easily follow.

  His eyes darted all around his display. The enemy escorts were firing…but their defensive batteries were different. The range was longer, and the rate of fire was vastly higher.

  He concentrated his ship’s limited scanning power, focused on the closest escort. The batteries were firing three or four times their previous speed, almost like some kind of automatic weapons. All across his formation, ships took hits, and veteran pilots began shouting back and forth, their discipline tested by the unexpected danger engulfing them.

  Stockton’s hands moved, jerking the throttle one way, and then another, increasing his evasion efforts, even as he tapped the comm unit, and yelled in a raw and scratchy voice, “All squadrons, evasive maneuvers…maximum intensity. Now!”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Occupation Headquarters

  Port Royal City

  Planet Dannith, Ventica III

  Year 317 AC

  “I need more time, Commander, and I need to retain several of the ground units scheduled for reassignment.” Carmetia sat in the plush seat in Raketh’s quarters, the beverage he’d given her still sitting untouched on the small table.

  “I will be leaving soon with the Reserve, while there is still time to take advantage of the opportunity to cripple the Union forces. I project that operation will require approximately three months, from my scheduled departure in four days, until my fleet returns. I can give you that long…and not a moment longer.” Raketh’s tone was coolly professional, but it was clear his thoughts were elsewhere, on the attack he was about to launch against the Union. Carmetia wasn’t sure if that was helpful or harmful to her cause, but he’d given her at least a portion of what she’d wanted. She’d hoped for more than three months, but now she was sure that was as far as he would go, at least then. If I can show substantial progress by then, he will probably extend the deadline…

  “Thank you, Commander. I am deeply grateful. I will pacify the planet and its population, without resorting to atrocities or genocide.”

  “I wish you the best, Carmetia, truly…because if you have not reached that goal in every particular by the time I return, I will have to take matters into my own hands.” He didn’t add any details. He didn’t have to.

  Carmetia knew precisely what that meant. She was privy to the orders Raketh had received from Chronos, both authorizing his attack against the Union and placing a hard deadline on the pacification of Dannith. She had three months to crush the resistance on the planet, or there would be mass executions. Assuming, of course, that Raketh didn’t just decide to obliterate the planet with nuclear fire. Chronos’s communique had expressly authorized him to do just that if he saw no other way to meet the timetable.

  “I understand, Commander.” She paused. “And, the units?” She knew she was pushing her luck, but she needed all the force she could get if she was going to have any chance at all of pacifying Dannith in time.

  Raketh paused for a moment, just looking back at her. Then, he nodded. “Very well. Altering the transfer schedule exceeds my explicit authority, but I, as you, would prefer to see the planet subjugated without resorting to…extreme…measures. So, I will cancel the transfer orders. You have your units for three more months. But, there will be no more time, Carmetia. That will not be my decision. If the people of Dannith are not under control by the end of that time, you know what we will be forced to do.” He paused for a few seconds. “See that it does not come to that.”

  “I will see it done, Commander. I will pacify Dannith before you return.”

  Whatever it takes…

  * * *

  “I know many of you have families, loved ones…and very likely, many of them have been targeted, moved to the camps we’ve all seen. I do not underestimate the pain you feel, the fear for spouses and children, for friends and those important to you. We did not wish for what has come upon us, and, Marines and Dannith citizen alike, we would all rather be home, at peace. But, we were given no choice. There is an enemy here, on your world—and God knows how much farther into Confederation space by now—and they have come to take from us all we hold dear. We must decide w
hat to do, how to proceed. There is no doubt our resistance had provoked some of what we see happening…but it is equally clear that our attacks have hurt the enemy, that the sting of our strikes have driven them to aggressive measures. Now, what do we do? Yield? Surrender? Allow the Hegemony to take uncontested control of Dannith, to make slaves of us, and of those friends and family members now imprisoned? Is that to be our future?”

  Holcott stood at the workstation, his hand on the small microphone extending down from his headset. He’d have preferred to address his people in person, but they were scattered around in almost two dozen hidden bunkers. He was risking enough with the direct laser comm links, but if he’d pulled everyone out in the open to listen to his speech, he’d have put them at the mercy of the enemy.

  “We have fought, with all the courage and fortitude we could muster, and, despite being outnumbered, and outmatched in every material way, we have put up one hell of a fight. We have taken losses, heavy losses, but we have endured, and we have kept up the pressure, even increased it, in the face of repeated enemy counterassaults. I am proud of every one of you, prouder than I have even been of anything in my life, and I am honored to lead you. But, we have come to a moment where my orders alone are not enough. You have obeyed my commands without question, without hesitation at the deadly danger they have placed upon you. But, I cannot order you, citizen-soldiers of Dannith, to remain with the resistance, to risk the escalation of what the enemy might do to the captives in the camps.”